When African Americans protested against police brutality in New York, they were portrayed as rioters, Malcolm X told an audience at the London School of Economics. When shop windows were smashed in the Black community, he said, the press gave the impression that “hoodlums, vagrants, criminals” wanted to break in and steal merchandise.
“But this is wrong,” Malcolm contended. “In America the Black community in which we live is not owned by us. The landlord is white. The merchant is white. In fact, the entire economy of the Black community in the states is controlled by someone who doesn’t even live there … And these are the people who suck the economic blood of our community.”
